Israel is a small country with a thriving security startup industry, and Microsoft appears to be have a taste for them. Today it announced an agreement to buy Secure Islands, its third Israeli security firm in the last year.

While Microsoft did not reveal a specific price, various reports peg the deal at between $77 million and $150 million.

Microsoft made the announcement official in a company blog post this morning. Secure Islands gives Microsoft a way to secure data across services, including its Office 365 and Azure cloud products. It’s not exactly a big secret that security is top of mind for everyone these days with high profile breaches coming on a regular basis.

Microsoft and other cloud vendors are trying to make the cloud a more secure alternative to the private data center and the Secure Islands purchase is part of that. Microsoft plans to incorporate the company into its Azure Rights Management Service upon completion of the deal.

It’s not a coincidence that Microsoft went after this particular company as it has products aimed specifically at Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange, as well as more generic pieces that can protect files across the enterprise.

Microsoft clearly is on a mission to buy reasonably priced cloud security companies to help beef up its cloud security business with engineering talent that has a deep understanding of cloud security issues.

Israel has a robust security startup business as many people emerge from their compulsory military training with cybersecurity chops and have started successful companies. Microsoft obviously noticed and has returned to the well several times to make strategic purchases for its growing cloud business.

Secure Islands has been around since 2006 and has raised $11.1 million to-date. If the published reports on price are close to accurate, it appears to have given its investors a nice return.